Hello Bruce,
I think the big question any business owner should ask before starting a
blog is Why bother? It can be a lot of work keeping it up - and posting
regularly is vital to a successful blog.
If you have a strong urge to express your opinions, I'd suggest starting a
personal blog along the lines of Martin Manley, Albris's CEO, who has a very
interesting blog that has little to do with the company he runs.
http://www.martinmanley.com/
Otherwise, the blog should either drive traffic to your site, create
community, or push sales.
For most booksellers, who have rather basic web sites, driving traffic
probably isn't that good of a reason. People only spend time on web sites
with a lot of interesting stuff going on. Powell's Books in Portland, one of
the most successful used bookstores in the US and also a major seller of new
books, has a blog that serves a just one more component in its marketing
campaign to get people to its web site. Other elements of that campaign
include Internet advertising and national print advertising.
http://www.powells.com/blog/
In contrast to Marty Manley's personal blog, Alibris also has a site blog
focused on books, with many guest authors from its cadre of booksellers.
This seems to both introduce readers to books they might want to buy
(pushing sales) and puts a human face on the web site (creating community).
http://bookblog.alibris.com .
Most small merchants probably don't need to create a community on their web
site, so pushing sales may be the best reason to do a blog.
Among antiquarian booksellers, Forrest Proper's Foggygates is the best
example I know of a blog that pushes sales by offering interesting
descriptions of books for sale.
http://foggygates.blogspot.com/
I think this format shows real promise for booksellers who could upload the
most interesting book they catalog each day, perhaps before it goes online
elsewhere. It would give customers a reason to visit and would not require
much extra work. I would suggest using a service like FeedBlitz to allow
customers to sign up for email updates, thus turning your blog posts into an
email newsletter as well.
If you want to explore the world of book blogs, I'd start with J. Godsey's
round up of news and her extensive list of links:
http://www.bibliophilebullpen.com.
>From there you can survey the universe of book blog, following links where
they take you.
My wife is a fairly successful blogger (in the top 2% in terms of Internet
traffic) and her gardening blog gets mentioned in the media fairly
regularly. A magazine asked her to write up a how-to guide, which is (of
course) on her blog. While it's aimed at gardening, the basic ideas apply.
http://dirtbyamystewart.blogspot.com/2006/05/dont-get-dirt-in-keyboard-and-o
ther.html
**********************************
P. Scott Brown, Editor
Fine Books & Collections magazine
http://www.finebooksmagazine.com
Blogging at http://blog.myfinebooks.com
PO Box 106
Eureka, CA 95502
tel. 707.443.9562
fax. 707.443.9572
*********************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Exlibris [mailto:EXLIBRIS@MAIL.ECW.NAME]On Behalf Of Bruce Tober
Sent: Saturday, July 29, 2006 11:05 AM
To: EXLIBRIS@MAIL.ECW.NAME
Subject: [EXLIBRIS] To blog or not to blog?
That is a question I'm considering. What I'd like to know is:
1. How many of you read bookseller blogs?
2. How informative.helpful do you find them?
3. What are the addresses of some of those you consider the best?
cheers
--
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books - some by as much as 50%. Check out our stock today at:
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Bruce Tober, <books at star-dot-star dot net>
UK, +44-780-374-8255 (Mobile) +44-121-553-4284 (land)